Oh, with what a zest had he re-commenced the writing, laid aside for so long! It was like returning to some glad haven of rest. Joy filled his whole being. The past six years had been heavy with suppressed yearning; the yearning to be about the work for which he knew God had pm-eminently fitted him: but his duties had been onerous, his time nearly fully taken up; and when he would have snatched some moments from night for the dearer work, his wife and his anxious friends had risen up in arms against it, for he was not over-strong, and some delicacy of constitution was preached about. Besides, as Mr. Huntley said, a writing manager might alarm the bank's patronizers. But he had it all his own way now, and made good profit of his writings. Papers on social questions of the day, essays, stories, were in turn written, and taken by different periodicals. They _had_ to be written, apart from other hopes and views, for the style in which they lived required additional means to support it, beyond his salary and his wife's money. It was not much style, after all, no extravagance; three maidservants, and little company; but everybody knows how money seems to melt in London. He had been at this work now for a year. And his wife was beginning to grow anxious, for she knew he was doing too much, and told him he was wearing himself out. If he could but resign the secretaryship! was ever in her secret hopes and thoughts just as much as his; and she wished her father could get his Canadian affairs well settled, so as to allow the necessary addition to her income. Hamish laughed at this. He was living in a glad dream of future fame and fortune: that it would inevitably come, he felt as sure of as though it lay at hand now, ready to be picked up. He was writing a long work; a work of three volumes; and this was the precious gem on which all his hopes and love and visions were centred. The periodical writing had to be done, for its returns were needed; but every spare moment, apart from that, was devoted to the book. A light of gladness beamed from his eyes; a joy, sweet as the chords of some soothing melody, lay ever on his spirit. Oh, what is there of bliss and love in the world that can compare with this! And it is known to so few; so few: by all else it can never be so much as imagined. Do not mistake it, you who read, for the pleasurable anticipation of a man or woman who may from chance causes have "taken up" the profession of literature, and look for the good, substantial and otherwise, that it is to bring. The two are wholly different; the one is born of heaven, the other of earth. But that man must live, Hamish Channing amidst the rest, the thought of _money_ being one of the returns, would be distasteful; never, as I honestly believe, accepted as such without a blush: the dross of earth mingling with the spiritualized, exalted, pure joy of Eden. It is well that this same gift of genius with its dear pleasures and its